Developer choice, ha-ha, very funny. I am not familiar with the industry and still feel safe to bet most of them (edit: actual software developers making games) just want to get enough money for doing what they can do without too much stress/disgust and also most of them don't have a desire to see their work die just because some manager decided it is time to make some other games instead
I don't know why these companies think they can talk their way out of this. No one is buying your BS. Just STFU.
All games become subscription only in 3..2..
Whenever a large games company talks about "developer choice" you know they're referring to one of a few things:
This initiative sure would make things more complicated for the game publishers, yes.
Because they're currently not doing the bare minimum.
If they weren't so accustomed to not doing the bare minimum, maybe they would have different opinions! Just saying.
Edit: Just signed the petition. Didn't think this was necessary before because, as soon as I heard of it, Finland was already top of the list percentage wise. But I did sign it, just for the hell yeah of it.
"Won't somebody PLEASE think of the ~~children~~ devs!?"
The last refuge of a dying argument 😴
The devs would probably prefer if their work for several years wasn't thrown in the trash. It's the publishers and suits killing games.
Why are publishers speaking for devs about how much choice devs would have? Why not get devs to speak?
Because sometimes publishers like to be the ones cuetailing dev choices
Because most devs are just codemonkeys implementing what they're told to. This is pure manipulative propaganda from the suits who are already robbing wages from good devs.
Curtailing developer choice is rather the point, no?
Yeah just the choices that fucks over paying customers. They are saying they would like to keep doing that and this laws would curtail that.
Will someone think of the poor shareholders? /s
Lol. We're gamers. We know that if we encounter enemies we're going in the right direction.
Still trying to find the right direction on animal crossing.
Towards the bees!
paying your debts. The game breaks as it cannot speculate anymore on your debt
Yes, it curtails you from making absurd choices about how to fuck customers out of the money they paid for your games
Yeah, because the choices they have now is working great for quality games...
Backpedaling to "defending creators" - that's a bold move, Cotton.
"curtail developer choice" is such a weak argument because you could equally apply it to literally every piece of regulation ever passed. Of course it curtails choice, that's almost the dictionary definition of an industry regulation.
If it means developers won’t make “live-service”/trash games anymore, we should hasten the SKG movement.
FPS games with community servers coming back is my dream
Only server browser, no matchmaking.
They still will, this will just limit their ability to force you to move to the next one once the servers shut down.
Most likely, if they are forced to allow public servers after they shut down the official ones, they will pull some other bullshit. Like claim the game is still available, but the 300$ cosmetics you bought are not allowed on public servers because they are separate from the game.
Honestly I'd even prefer that because it diminishes the value of in game purchases and would be a step towards getting rid of them as well.
They should be compelled to either make those cosmetics available for everyone or have some technical means to prove ownership (e.g. blockchain or cryptographically signed file). You can't lose stuff you bought just because the publisher shut down the servers.
they say "developer choice" because they know those words have positive connotations but what they mean is "publisher greed"
Oh no?! It developer's choices vs purchaser's options. Who will win, it's a mystery only time can solve. Just kidding, we all know who the courts will side with, as it is never "the people".
The original article completely misrepresents the initiative:
We appreciate the passion of our community; however, the decision to discontinue online services is multi-faceted, never taken lightly and must be an option for companies when an online experience is no longer commercially viable. We understand that it can be disappointing for players but, when it does happen, the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws.
Private servers are not always a viable alternative option for players as the protections we put in place to secure players’ data, remove illegal content, and combat unsafe community content would not exist and would leave rights holders liable. In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.
...
Stop Killing Games is not trying to force companies to provide private servers or anything like that, but leave the game in a playable state after shutting off servers. This can mean:
Of course, releasing server code is an option.
The expectation is:
That didn't restrict design decisions, it just places a requirement when the game is discontinued. If companies know this going in, they can plan ahead for their exit, just like we expect for mining companies (they're expected to fill in holes and make it look nice once they're done).
I argue Stop Killing Games doesn't go far enough, and if it's pissing off the games industry as well, then that means it strikes a good balance.
And "would leave rights holders liable" is completely false, no game would have offline modes if it did
Another part of it is that if they discontinue support, they can’t stop the community from creating their own server software.
There are so many ways to approach this. The point is ensuring consumers retain the right to keep using what they purchased, even if they have to support it themselves.
Fuck developer choice! What about my choice as a consumer?
Companies would still be cutting flour with chalk if they had their way. "It's limiting blah blah blah" that's the point you corpos, consumer rights are about the consumer not the bottom line
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